Here’s why Mozilla picked Portland to open its first offices outside Silicon Valley

Mozilla, makers of the popular Firefox browser, announced last week that it was expanding its cohort in Portland and moving employees into a brand new office. This marks the first time the non-profit has opened an office in the U.S. outside of the Bay Area.

So, why did the Silicon Valley-based company choose Portland for expansion? For starters, Mozilla already had about 26 employees stationed in Portland and working out of the Collective Agency collaborative space.

But there are reasons past that. Some of Mozilla’s first employees came from Portland’s large open source ecosystem — many from Oregon State University’s Open Source lab — and the city has been an integral part of the company’s success from the very first days.

The new 8,500-square-foot office, located in Portland’s upscale Pearl District, will house staff working across Firefox for Desktop, Android and the Firefox OS. Mozilla also plans to add 14 employees over the next few years and hold community events in its new space.

“It’s been phenomenal for us,” Simple CEO Joshua Reich said of Portland. “A big part of our success comes down to the personal human level of customer service, and Portland has a great talent pool for that. People share our morals and really want to build fantastic careers around what we do. It’s hard to find that in other cities.”

Taylor Soper is a GeekWire staff reporter who covers a wide variety of tech assignments, including emerging startups in Seattle and Portland, the sharing economy and the intersection of technology and sports. Follow him @taylor_soper and email taylor@geekwire.com.